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Members of the Boise City Council are (back, L-R) council members TJ Thomson, Ben Quintana, Lauren McLean, Scot Ludwig (front, L-R) Council Pro Tem Elaine Clegg, Mayor David H. Bieter and Council President Maryanne Jordan.

The Mayor works full-time, managing the day-to-day operations of the City and providing leadership and policy direction to the City Council. The Mayor chairs all meetings of the City Council, voting only in the case of a tie. The six members of the City Council work part-time, holding budget and policy-setting authority for the city. The Mayor and City Council members are elected at large by popular vote. City Council members are elected to a specific Council seat, but the seats are not determined geographically. City elections are held in odd number years (e.g. 2007, 2009, 2011).

Boise Deputy Chief of Police William Bones presented a review of three major department initiatives to Mayor Bieter and members of the Boise City Coucnil today. Among the findings;

the 10 to 10 Zone implemented as a pilot project for 2013 Boise State football games was a success as it was understood by fans and resulted in a notable decrease in open container citations;

Boise's one year old anti-discrimination ordinance appears to have increased confidence and encouraged better reporting of same sex domestic violence;

and the department's Crisis Intervention Team, officers specially trained in responding to those in emotional or mental crisis, now fives year old, has reached more officers and is increasingly needed as calls for police response to those in crisis are also on the increase.

Ordinance appears to have an effect of increasing confidence and encouraging better reporting of same sex domestic violence.

10-to-10 Zone Review

Very pleased with officers educational outreach and citizen compliance with the new ordinance. Boundaries of the Zone were clearly understood. The message reached the intended audience.

The number of open container tickets issued within the Boise State University game day tailgating areas was noticeably reduced from a high of 400 just a few years ago to 119 in 2013.

This allowed police officers to focus resources on other, more pressing safety issues like behavior that threatened safety.

Reduced the number of problems that occur in the neighborhoods south and east of the stadium.

Underage minors in possession continues to be a problem, arrests more than tripled in 2013 from the prior year.

Although the 10-10 zone hours don’t fit precisely with the starting times of all home football games; we believe standardizing these hours to 10-10 avoided public confusion and aided understanding and compliance.

Request Mayor and Council to Amend current ordinance to remove the last line of the exception in 6-01-15C which states: “This exception (Boise City Code § 6-01-15 C.) shall expire on June 1, 2014.”

Boise Police Crisis Intervention Team – 5 year Review

CIT is a community-based collaboration between law enforcement, NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), those suffering from mental illness, their families, advocates and mental health providers. The purpose of the program is to help law enforcement officers more effectively manage incidents involving mentally ill people in crisis. Implemented at BPD in 2009.

22% of BPD officers have taken the 40-hour training course to be a CIT member (exceeds department target of 20% in five years)

Different forms of abbreviated CIT training have been given to all officers

Calls for police service involving suicidal individuals and people in crisis have continued to climb over the last five years averaging 6,500 cases annually; Boise Police have had successful interventions in all cases with credit given to extensive training of officers.

Looking ahead to policing 2020, the department’s goal is for 50% of officers to be fully trained in CIT (full 40 hours of training), to require officers applying for specialty assignments like SWAT, SRO and the Hostage Negotiation Team to have this training prior to applying or committed to receiving it in the first year of the assignment.

Department is researching possible cloud based solutions , such as those modeled by the Autism Society, where information is stored and maintained by non-government entities on an individual with a disease and the best ways to help calm them down. This information would be readily accessible for officers as they are responding to the crisis allowing officers to personally tailor their response to that individual in need.